hckrnws
Oldest US firearm unearthed in Arizona, a bronze cannon linked to Coronado
by pseudolus
I alerted at the description of the poor pillaging the expedition resorted to - just some blankets looted from pueblos.
Those blankets today would be worth more than the gold they had hoped to find.
Is a cannon really a firearm? Was this for an individual, or is it a crew served weapon?
That's up to you.
One of ways the ATF defines a firearm is "any weapon that can be converted to expel a projectile using an explosive."
If you don't WANT it to be considered a firearm maybe it's sufficiently corroded such that it's no longer true that it could expel a projectile using an explosive, and therefore is no longer a firearm. In that case, if you hit someone with it, it goes back to being an armament, but no longer a firearm.
That is of course unless you melt the metal down and turn it into some kind of lower receiver. It would go back to being considered a firearm by the ATF.
Whether or not it's a firearm depends on your context. If you and all your friends disagree it's a firearm, in that context it is not. In other contexts it is.
Words are really just illusions though. It's equally true that there are no firearms, because firearms are just words. It also is true that any and all matter is a few steps away from being a firearm. Where do you end and I begin? If we get quantum mechanics into it, maybe everything already is a firearm.
This was made before 1899 (or whatever the cutoff date is), and it’s black powder. The ATF does not consider this a firearm.
Pedantically, it would be considered an "antique firearm". Still a firearm, but basically unregulated
> (3) The term “firearm” means (A) any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive; (B) the frame or receiver of any such weapon; (C) any firearm muffler or firearm silencer; or (D) any destructive device. Such term does not include an antique firearm.
according to the law antique firearms are not firearms.
And at one time a 14-inch long shoestring with a loop at each end was a "machinegun."
https://web.archive.org/web/20050313043608/https://jpfo.org/...
That’s an incredibly biased reading of that. It’s the gun + 14” of shoe string attached to the trigger enabling automatic fire that’s the machine gun not the string on its own.
No, this 2004 letter specifies that the string with loops on its own, because it was designed to be used to modify a rifle to fire automatically, was a machinegun.
Three years later, in 2007 the ATF decided differently, "Upon further review, we have determined that the string by itself is not a machinegun..."
https://everydaynodaysoff.com/2010/01/25/shoestring-machine-...
Black powder deflagrates, it doesn't detonate (explode.)
this is probably the best thing I have ever read on this cursed platform. thank you
I'm glad you liked it.
When the daily microdose isn't so micro
Not on drugs, I just happened to read the Perfection of Wisdom Text that Cuts Like a Thunderbolt a few years ago and I guess parts of it really stuck with me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
> Was this for an individual, or is it a crew served weapon?
FTA: “Sometimes referred to as a wall gun, the unearthed cannon was an early type of firearm requiring two people to operate. Designed primarily for use along fortification walls, the expedition reportedly utilized them as an offensive weapon to breach wooden or light adobe walls of domestic dwellings in the cities they encountered.”
Wall gun: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wall_gun
Yes, a cannon is a firearm. The "arms" bit has nothing to do with human limbs, it's from the Latin arma.
A firearm is anything that uses an explosive to propel a projectile, so it can be "fired".
It is. The US defines a firearm as "Any weapon... which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive" and definitions in other countries are similar. Both a pistol and a ship-mounted cannon are firearms.
I thought if it uses black powder it isn't (federally) a firearm? IIRC felons can own black powder guns, you can have them shipped to your door, etc
Cannons are legal to own, which is a little wild
To be fair, it’s hard to make a 2nd amendment argument that doesn’t allow private ownership of muzzle loading black powder cannons.
They haven’t exactly featured prominently in drug land/gang movies either.
US federal law excludes antiques from this, antiques being defined as 1898 or older.
Well it goes boom and it’s roughly shaped like a big stick, so it’s big boomstick! Boomlog?
This is my boomstick!
Yes for all senses of the word. Moreover, first firearms were really hand cannons on a stick. Look at the picture in the article, it was a rifle-sized weapon mounted on a swivel.
> Sometimes referred to as a wall gun, the unearthed cannon was an early type of firearm requiring two people to operate.
The article claims it is a firearm.
A firearm, if sufficiently old, is not a firearm per the ATF.
As you’ve illustrated, it depends on the definition you choose for a given term.
That may also depend on who you ask and in what context.
Definatly not a firearm.
It belongs in a museum!
And somewhere nearby there used to be a gold cross, which is in a museum.
Indiana Jones
Psych ?
Is this a US firearm? My read of the article suggests it is a Spanish firearm that was used by Spanish troops in what became US territory. Perhaps the title should be “Old Spanish firearm unearthed in Arizona”.
It's not a US firearm, it's a Spanish firearm unearthed in what is now the US.
To continue with the pedantry of the comments, it really depends on how you define the ownership. It may have been the Spanish who owned it once upon a time, however they left it on US soil. Additionally, it was Americans who found it, and if we assume “finders keepers losers weepers” applies then the US is, in fact, the rightful owners, and unless actions are taken to retrieve it then it will go to an Arizona museum, solidifying the ownership as American.
If we wished to be technically correct (which is the best kind), then we would say a “Spanish-used antique firearm, which is not legally a firearm, unearthed in Arizona, now United States’ oldest firearm.”
> however they left it on US soil.
No they didn't! :-)
The soil they left it on became US soil much later.
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